Updates and questions

Hey guys,
Steve here.
I’m in a pretty awesome mood today–staar testing is all gone, I just had my coffee, and I get the privilege to write yet another blog post.
Well as the post title implies, I have a question for you readers–but no need to worry, it’s just a matter of filling out a small pole. So I was thinking… should I have a home page (an actual home page), or should the home page remain as it is, the blog entries.
Let me elaborate here. A home page, is what you’d see when first logging onto stevend.net. I was thinking about creating one of those, instead of showing blog entries on the home page as is being done currently. So, I’d kindly ask any and all readers of this post to fill out the pole below, and submit in your vote. In two weeks, (on April 16), I will decide based on the majority of votes whether or not to do a custom home page. So please vote, you have two weeks to do so.
[polldaddy poll=7937065]
Alright… with that knocked out of the way, let’s get on to the main body of this post.
First of all, I’d like to inform you about severe weather day, and the weather expected therein. On Monday, I said that the weather on Thursday April 3 (dubbed by me as severe weather day) was going to be severe; large hail, damaging winds, and isolated tornadoes. The forecast really hasn’t changed much, except that the storms are now most likely to hit mid to late morning, and the main severe weather threat is going to be east of where I live. So, hopefully, we will not be seeing any tornadoes in the near future.
On to life news, school has been boring (more than usual), because of staar testing. Basically, on both yesterday and today, I sat at a table for 5 hours, completing tests that were (no exaggeration), at least 60 questions. Not to mention, the English test which I took today, had like 6 stories in it. My goodness, state of Texas, why must you burden me with such horrendous and pointless work? I am a natural born relaxationist (don’t ask me if that’s a word, because I honestly don’t know)… so all that work was too much for me.
Anyway, besides school, I still haven’t programmed since last week… except maybe a bit on Sunday out of pure bordem. I plan to talk to my dad, and try to reason with him that my intentions aren’t to sell my software as of yet, but to release them as first programs. And if he thinks someone can steel it from me, (I think this is the case), I’ll need to let him know that I’m releasing this software as an executable, and not open source code, thus no one can modify the windows that are titled “trash by sQuad software” and “sQuad word.” because after all, despite my endless excited ranting about programming in the past months and years, he just told me last Thursday, after I’d spent 2 months of hard stressful work on 2 projects with quite a bit of potential. In fact, oddly enough, today marks exactly one month since I first began writing the code for Trash, and this Sunday will not only mark 2 months since the first lines of sQuad word were written, but also the day I began actually learning programming. So do you see where I’m coming from?
Moving on, I also have some news about the podcast. I know I said I couldn’t schedule episodes to the date, as we all know how that was going, but I can tell you the game of the day for the next few episodes… in case you’re interested. For episodes 20 and 21, I will continue my swamping with Steve series, and for episode 20 the campaign I’ll be playing is one called “twisted egg hunt.” It’s like an egg hunt, but there are also zombies; so not only do you have to find as many eggs as is possible in the allotted time period, but you also have to avoid having your brains eaten by zombies. Good times, good times.
Aside from that, episode 22 will have a review of the remarkable game my friend Danny is working on, the first of its kind. It’s called snow race, and is an accessible, multi player snowboarding game for the blind. I highly recommend you go to his website (the link will be at the bottom of the post) to check it out, because it’s a truly awesome game. So I guess you’d better look forward to episode 22, because that’s when snow race will be demonstrated.
That’s about it for podcast game of the days, but I’ll get some more games to test in later episodes. And while on the subject of podcasts, I can see a few of you’ve listened to episode 19? That is, after all, the most clicked link on my website in the last 3 days. Well I’m just glad you enjoy it.
———————-
Completely changing topics, let’s discuss my future for a while. This weekend, I don’t know what I’ll do as of yet, except goal ball. It seems like a while since I’ve gone to goal ball, though it’s probably only been two weeks. Also in my near future, I have a orchestra concert coming up on April 15 (we’re playing some good songs, but not the best songs we’ve learned. I think the songs we’re playing are songs we learned about 2 weeks ago). But for our orchestra concert on May 29, we’re playing some pretty awesome songs, so good that I’ve officially declared them “my jams.”
Also, we’re having a choir concert, however I don’t know exactly when that is. But for that, we’re singing “black burd” by the Beatles, and just the way you are by Bruno Mars.
Anyway, continuing with future events, on April 6 it will officially be 2 months until the last day of school. Also, there are only 7 more Monday’s left of school, but that’s not counting memorial day, which of course we have off.
Well I guess that about wraps up tonight’s post. Good night everyone, and I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week, and look forward to another one of my posts.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
P.S. Here’s where to go to find out more about snow race:
the snow race page of danny’s website

Another Birthday well spent

Hey guys,
Steve here.
As the title suggests, this was a good day. I’m pretty tired right now; not sure if it’s all that sugar I ate, or all the fun I had, or both… so I think I’m going to try and make this a short post.
I don’t know if this is coincidence, but this blog reached 10,000 views on my birthday! That’s a nice present… isn’t it?
Well anyway, after I posted on Sunday, not much happened–besides singing practice and church of course, as I said would happen.
On Monday, I went to school like normal, as well as on Tuesday, or Steve Eve. By the way, I hope you all had a wonderful Steve eve!
Waking up today was pleasant. for one, I got that extra 1 hour and 15 minutes of sleep, because my dad took me to school as aposed to the bus which comes and picks me up at 7:00. And for 2, I pigged out on a wonderful breakfast–a glazed donut, chocolate donut, a cinnamon roll, donut wholes, cake donut, 2 pigs in a blanket, and a nice big bottle of chocolate milk. And though I was very full afterward, I’ve gotta say that was the best breakfast I’ve had in quite a while.
Anyway, school was pretty boring today–but, I got a lot of happy birthday wishes though. And when I turned 15, (at 3:01 PM), my science teacher was giving a lecture on compound elements on the periodic table.
When I got home, however, I took a short break before we all (me, my mom, my dad, and my sister) went to stake n shake, where I had (you guessed it), chicken fingers and an m & m / cookies and cream shake.
After that, we went to church, where the youth leader through a small party–I had a cake, and cupcake, and they all sung happy birthday to me, me in cluded).
Finally after church, I came home, showered, and have been relaxing and reflecting over the day since then. On Friday night and Saturday, I’ll be having my birthday party down at the lake. And I know you’re probably wondering what I got–nothing just yet. I’m waiting to open my presents until the party itself.
Well I guess that concludes this post, since I’ve got to go to bed. I really enjoyed this birthday; and though I’m a bit sad that it’s over, I can rest assured that more birthdays are to come in the future, and I still have a party to look forward to. Good night to you all, and happy Day of the Best!
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

good and bad news, along with current life events

Hey guys,
Steve here.
Yes, you read that right. Today is one of the rare occurrences of bad news on this blog… so I guess I’ll tell you the bad news right now just to get it out of the way.
You know Swamp? The game I’ve been addicted to for about a year now? Well due to the fact that there are so many hackers, attacks, and other unwanted things happening within the game, Aprone (swamp’s creator) is making it a paid game. I won’t have to pay for single player, but if I want multiplayer, that’ll be $24 per year.
I have a visa gift card, so hopefully that will work. If so, I might consider paying for swamp. But if not… well I’d better step up my game (quite literally) and program some audio games worth selling.
Speaking of audio games, the good news I mentioned earlier is about Trash, the card game that I am programming for the blind. let me tell you how much progress I’ve done on that.
-I completed the player system, testing it out to be sure it works. Now, you can draw, place cards at the desired position, junk, and draw from the junk pile.
-mostly completed the computer player system. The only thing I need to do for the computer player system is to add the draw from junk pile procedure, but I figure that’ll be easy.
-began the process of adding sounds. I’ve already added a deck shuffling sound for when you start the game and the deck is shuffled, but I don’t think I’ll add any more sounds until I’m completely done with all the other stuff.
Speaking of sounds, I found my flash drive of sounds, which I believe contains over 1000 sound affects. That’s good news for future games.
Moving on to my life, we’re well into spring break now. To start off the break, my friend Oscar from church came over to spend the night. It was another surprise my parents threw at me–one minute I was on the computer, chatting with Danny over skype, the next I was scrambling to clean my room and the bathroom so they didn’t look like a complete mess when Oscar came.
And three hours later, my mom and I picked up Oscar, and him and I spent the rest of the night playing wii, and hanging out.
On Saturday, I had goal ball practice, however Libby didn’t go because she went to the mall with the church youth group to ice skate (yet another event that I was going to, but didn’t figure that out until after my last update, I think). Anyway, Oscar came to goal ball as well, so he got to see my awesome skill!
Right after goal ball, Oscar, my dad, and I met up with Libby and the rest of the youth group at the mall, where I attempted, but failed, at ice skating. But hey, It’s not really about how good I was, it was about hanging with friends, (at least that’s what I hope). But seriously, even though I was ice skating along the wall, I still managed to slip 3 or 4 times, but luckily I didn’t fall.
Skipping ahead, after ice skating, we all went to in and out burger for lunch, before heading our separate ways and going home. Oscar got to hang out with me for a few more hours–and for dinner, 2 hours after we ate lunch, we had more burgers and fries. But hey, there’s no such thing as too many burgers or fries in my book :).
After Oscar left, my Saturday night went a little something like this. Lay on the couch, watching from the side lines as the rest of my family played Yahtzee on the wii, as my head pounded and throbbed, feeling as though someone knocked it with a baseball bat or something. I’m not sure why my head hurt so bad, but luckily it was gone in about 2 hours.
Besides church, Sunday was uneventful. And as for Monday, the only thing I did outside the house was go out for lunch with my sister, mom, and dad. And today, besides a lot of programming, I didn’t do much of anything.
But aside from getting out of the house, my last 3 days have been filled with Skyping my friends, and playing my games, all day, and until 2 or 3 in the morning.
Ah. Isn’t it fun to be a teenager?
Anyway, that’s about it for today’s post. I know you’re sad because you don’t get to read any more of my words at the moment, but you could always:
-read previous posts, like posts before you started following this blog.
-eagerly await my next post.
–but all joking aside, I hope you enjoyed tonight’s post. And remember last night’s Monday’s musings post–I wasn’t lying. I really do enjoy writing these posts.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

YEY SATURDAY!!! (not).

Hello all,
severe storm steve again.

Most people are excited about it being Saturday are they not? Most people that is, except me. There are probably 6,999,999,999 people on the plannet who are going, “Woo-hoo! Saturday at last!” There is a valad reason for me not being excited however–the end is near.
I’m not some end-of-world big talker, thus that sourt of catastrophe isn’t what the end will bring. The “end” is another name for the last day of a break, the day when you know that in 24 hours you will be walking into the dreaded school. In my case, the end is tomorrow. The end to a quite awesome spring break that seemed to slip through my fingers one quick moving day at a time. It seems just yesterday I was walking through my front door and hanging my backpack up, knowing I wouldn’t have to bear its weight for the next 9 days. Now, after just a blink of an eye, it is doomsday eve.
Don’t get me wrong, Sunday during the daytime hours won’t be doomsday, because it is still spring break. The actual doom will come at 10:00 that night, the time spring break is up for me and when I have to go to bed.
On a posative note, let’s do a little recap of events that happened over the break.

Last weekend was one of relaxation. Nothing really happened, since goalball was canseled for spring break. Monday, I had to get a phizical for a summer camp I will be attending, the same one I attended last year. Please click here to see how that camp went. It’s called Lions camp, and is actually quite a blast. This time, I will be going on July 7th, not the first.
After that doctors appointment, I was trapped in the house for the next 2 days with my sister (what fun).
Thursday and Friday were the only 2 days the 4 of us got to spend together as a family. We didn’t do much Thursday, besides cooking hamburgers and playing wii family game night.
Friday was the day I got some really good exercise in. After a 45 minute bikeride in the morning, our family went to white rock, where me and my sister threw a ball back and forth and walked around with my parents and our 2 boxers, Cassie and Newton.
After the afternoon at white rock, I came home and crashed as a result of a headache followed by extreme exhaustion. When I finally awoke 2 hours later, I ended up spending the night with my family again.

Today has been another day I was trapped with my sister. About what I said earlier, just kidding. It really isn’t that bad. I’ve been watching weather videos on youtube all day, along with eating lunch, drinking coffee (lots of coffee), and a whole bunch of nothing.

P.S. Yesterday at whiterock, me and my sister fed the ducks. They grabbed the flippin’ bread out of our hands, on one occasion a fat burd bighting my finger during an attempt to get some bread that was stuck around it. Here is a picture of the ducks getting the bread:
feading_duck_at_white_rock

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
steve